Over at Daily Kos, Jed Lewison points out an AP article showing that insurance companies are salivating in anticipation of health reform with no public option.
Health care reform without a public option "would be fantastic" for insurers, said Robert Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a Virginia-based health care consulting firm.
"They're going to get millions of new customers and more than a trillion in new premiums over a 10-year period," said Laszewski, a former industry executive. "There's a reason they aren't running any negative ads."
So investors are going all in on Wall Street, sending stock prices up for the major health insurance companies. We all know what is good for insurance companies, is good for us, ... right?
Even after the President's speech, and polls continuing to show support for a public option, Democrats like Baucus and Conrad continue to be in bed with health insurers, and big pharmaceutical companies.
These plans as now constructed may be even worse than doing nothing. I only see two ways to make a successful plan. One, obviously is having the public option. The other would involve serious regulation governing what the health care industry can charge. That does not seem likely to happen, especially when one considers that our legislature in recent years has allowed credit card companies to offer worse credit terms than Tony Soprano.
I continue to be pessimistic, that anything will happen that can impact the health care system in a positive way for consumers. Of course, even if I am pleasantly surprised, the odds of reform being in place soon enough are very long indeed.
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